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A Prodigal Son Returns and a Meeting is Arranged
For All Nails #34: A Prodigal Son Returns and a Meeting is Arranged by Henrik Kiertzner ---- :Ouistreham, Normandy, France :22 September 1972 :0300 hours local The faint trail of bubbles was almost invisible among the billows. The wind was up and the Channel was active. The watchers on the seawall could make out a faint glint as four figures rose to their feet in the shallows and, hefting rucksacks, made their way to the water's edge, where two took up firing positions, cradling stubby machine carbines, one faced back to sea and flashed a subdued light signal and the leader whistled softly while staring intently into the night. One of the watchers whistled an odd, two-tone note in reply and the group on the shore dashed up the beach to the seawall to join him. No greetings were exchanged as the whole party -- the six watchers and the four wetsuit-clad men from the sea -- made its way inland at a rare pace to a large waiting loke, parked some two or three hundred yards back on a metalled road behind the seawall. They boarded the loke which set off at once for Caen. Company Sergeant Martineau of the Scandinavian 1st Fremmedregiment had come home. He had left Caen twenty-five years earlier to seek his fortune elsewhere, away from the Boche and the Royalists and was returning, if not in triumph, at least armed, trained and prepared to spread disadvantage among the Germans -- secure both in the knowledge that his family was safe, well-fed and well-provided for if the worst should happen and that his skills and experience would go a long way towards making life for the local Boche far less pleasant than it had been. Despite the discomfort of the close-fitting wetsuit and the knowledge that he would be shot out of hand as a terrorist if detected by the Boche, he was as close to being a perfectly happy man as he had ever been. ---- :12 km NNE Nordkapp :Kingdom of Scandinavia :22 September 1972 :0530 hours local SMU Hajen, third in the Delfinen class, had been lying on the sea bottom off North Cape for a week, waiting for a particular signature on the audiofon. FN1 The briefing at Elduvik had stressed to the entire company that the signature was unique and that, once intercepted and located, a specific audio signal should be given, which would be returned. Once received, Hajen would take the lead by two miles and escort the transient to St Thomas. The transient was expected to have similar performance and characteristics to Hajen. Should the correct audio response not be forthcoming, Hajen was to cut and run "as if the Devil himself was coming to eat them," as the Kommodore had vulgarly said. There had been little speculation. As far as the boat's company knew, there were two Powers which disposed of submersibles sharing performance and characteristics with the Delfinen class -- the name class itself and the "Taiwanese" Mendoca and Adam Smith classes. The Mendocas were shipkillers like the Delfinens; the Adam Smiths were a "strategic asset" FN2 with a different role altogether. Historically, they were thought to have patrolled in Arctic waters and the chill North Pacific; if they were now to be home-ported out of the giant submersible havens in St Thomas, there was much in the future for an innocent neutral Scandinavian submersible man to ponder on. ---- :Bayeux, Normandy, France :23 September 1972 :1212 hours local The four-man Schupo FN3 patrol, with its supporting Gendarmerie team, was strolling down the middle of the main street, utterly oblivious to the long queue of traffic building up behind it. The German police, carrying their sabre scabbards in their left hands, their right hands resting on the huge MHFW 41 FN4 holsters on their Sam Browne belts, paid little attention to their surroundings, leaving that to the black-clad Gendarmes around them. The Oberwachmeister in the lead was a large man, his belly straining against the green cloth of his uniform and his whiskers startlingly white against his rubicund complexion. He wore a typical collection of campaign ribbons -- France, Egypt, India, Russia, Indo-China -- two wound badges and the blue-and-white ribbon of the Bavarian Bravery Medal in Gold. A hundred yards further up the main street, a small black cargo 'bus was parked, with its rear doors facing the oncoming patrol. Only close inspection would show the four-inch hole in the right-hand cargo door. Inside the loke, resting comfortably on a pile of sacking, Martineau, dressed in comfortable and well-worn bleu de travail, was in a firing position, cradling a Mauser SLG 66 FN5, with a huge suppressor and an optical sight. He hissed lightly between his teeth in irritation as a passer-by obscured his line of sight. Seconds later, his view cleared and he lightly squeezed the trigger. The shot was a low thump, barely audible outside the loke and he kicked the back of the driver's seat. He sat up and started to disassemble the long rifle as the driver fed power to wheels viciously and the loke howled away, making an immediate left turn to get straight out of line of sight of the now-alarmed patrol. Oberwachtmeister Karl-Heinz Schuschnigg was confused. Suddenly he was lying on his back and he felt terribly sleepy and, in an odd way, as if he should be in pain but was not. He brushed his hand across the chest of his jacket and was surprised to find that it was wet. He reached down to his side and discovered that he was lying in a huge pool of warm, sticky liquid. He looked up to see his comrades, Lorenz, Manfredi and Rosenbaum looking down at him. It seemed darker than it should have been at just past midday on a fine autumn day in Normandy. He had only a few seconds to think, apropos of nothing, of his grandchildren, before suddenly, with no drama and no pain, he died, without realising that Martineau's 8.5mm softnose bullet had blown his spine out through an exit wound the size of a tea plate in his back. ---- Forward to FAN #35 (Scandinavia}: A Question of Attribution. Forward to 23 September 1972: Fingernails that Shine Like Justice. Return to For All Nails. Category:Scandinavia Category:Yvette Fanchon